I had the privilege of working with Pessi on my feature film THE INNOCENTS. He is not only an extremely talented composer with the highest professional standards and a large network of great musicians at his disposal (including himself), but also a very nice person who is a joy to work with. Working on my film he was more than willing to move out of his comfort zone, to put in extra time experimenting and searching, because he wanted to create a score unique for the film. The music - both unsettling and beautiful - is a vital contribution to the film and I couldn’t imagine it without it.
Eskil Vogt, Director “The Innocents”
Pessi Levanto is a pianist, arranger and composer of original music for film, television and the concert hall. He has scored over thirty feature films since 2004, around forty short films and documentaries and six TV series, with three Jussi, three Harpa and two Amanda nominations.
Recent work has been as much Nordic as Finnish — features with Eskil Vogt, Ole Giæver, Karoline Lyngbye and Marie Grahtø. He came to film from jazz piano, studying orchestration and conducting alongside it, and writes across symphony orchestras, big bands, chamber ensembles, a cappella groups and rock bands.
He studied at the jazz department of the Sibelius Academy, taking a Master of Music in jazz piano in 1999, with further piano studies under Bobo Stenson in Stockholm and Kenny Werner in New York, and some thirty conducting workshops with Jorma Panula between 2018 and 2022. He has taught at the Sibelius Academy, the Theatre Academy, Aalto University and Metropolia.
Apart from the film world, Pessi is a sought-after arranger and has written hundreds of arrangements for orchestras, big bands, choirs and miscellaneous ensembles. A big project in this field has been, for example, Classical Trancelations with the Helsinki Philharmonic, sold-out stadium shows of orchestral versions of club music classics.
In his spare time Pessi spends time with his daughter and two cats, reads books and practices judo.